Wedding Cake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “That’s not exactly romantic!” Lisa looked dismayed.

  “I knew that then. And I also knew that he thought of himself as a sophisticated and debonair man of the world. He didn’t care who he took to the prom as long as she looked the way he wanted her to look. His date was just a prop to make him appear even more suave and urbane. But I wanted to go to the prom, and he was the class president, the most desirable date I could possibly have, so . . .” Aunt Nancy gave a little shrug. “I made the dress, put it on, and went to the prom with Allen Duke.”

  “Did you have a good time?” Andrea asked her.

  “I had a great time! All the girls admired my dress, and their dates couldn’t take their eyes off me. We were the most stunning couple there. Allen was a superb dancer, and we spent the whole night on the dance floor. When the prom was over, Allen took me home and then he went out on a late date with another girl he said wouldn’t have looked good in the Audrey Hepburn dress.”

  Delores just stared at Aunt Nancy. It was the first time that Hannah had ever seen her mother speechless. It took Delores several seconds to recover and then she said, “How awful for you!”

  “Not really. I knew that Allen was all show, and I wasn’t interested in him anyway. And I knew from the start that he wasn’t interested in me. On the whole, he was a perfect prom date.”

  “But prom dates are supposed to be romantic,” Lisa objected. “How could he be a perfect date?”

  “Allen looked romantic. I’m talking about movie-star romantic. I looked the part of the ingénue, and Allen looked the part of the handsome lover. And that’s the reason I told you this story. Chef Alain Duquesne appreciates someone who looks the part.” Aunt Nancy turned to Hannah. “Everyone at the Food Channel knows you’re getting married right after the competition. And by the time you arrive in New York, the judges will know it, too. That’s why I think you should bake a wedding cake for the cake challenge. And you should present it to the judges wearing your wedding veil. Allen will really appreciate that, and I can almost guarantee that he’ll give you a perfect score so that you can win that challenge too!”

  CHIPS GALORE

  WHIPPERSNAPPER COOKIES

  DO NOT preheat your oven quite yet—this cookie dough needs to chill before baking.

  1 box (approximately 18 ounces) yellow cake mix, the kind that makes a 9-inch by 3-inch cake (I used Duncan Hines—18.5 ounces net weight)

  1 large egg, beaten (just whip it up in a glass with a fork)

  2 cups of Original Cool Whip, thawed (measure this—a tub of Cool Whip contains a little over 3 cups and that’s too much!)

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1 cup assorted chips, chopped into little pieces (regular chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, or whatever you have left over from other cookies you’ve baked)

  —

  ½ cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar (you don’t have to sift it unless it’s got big lumps)

  Pour HALF of the dry cake mix into a large bowl.

  Use a smaller bowl to mix the two cups of Cool Whip with the beaten egg and the vanilla extract. Stir gently with a rubber spatula until everything is combined.

  Add the Cool Whip mixture to the cake mix in the large bowl. STIR VERY CAREFULLY with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir only until everything is combined. You don’t want to stir all the air from the Cool Whip.

  Sprinkle the rest of the cake mix on top and gently fold it in with the rubber spatula. Again, keep as much air in the batter as possible. Air is what will make your cookies soft and have that melt-in-your-mouth quality.

  Sprinkle the cup of chopped, mixed-flavor chips on top and gently fold the chips into the airy cookie mixture. (You can easily chop the chips in a food processor by using the steel blade and processing them in an on-and-off motion.)

  Cover the bowl and chill this mixture for at least one hour in the refrigerator. It’s a little too sticky to form into balls without chilling it first.

  Hannah’s 1st Note: Andrea sometimes mixes whippersnapper dough up before she goes to bed on Friday night and bakes her cookies with Tracey in the morning.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you see our mother, please don’t mention that I told you Andrea always gives Bethie a warm whippersnapper cookie for breakfast on Saturday mornings.

  When your cookie dough has chilled and you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F., and make sure the rack is in the middle position. DO NOT take your chilled cookie dough out of the refrigerator until after your oven has reached the proper temperature.

  While your oven is preheating, prepare your cookie sheets by spraying them with Pam or another nonstick baking spray, or lining them with parchment paper.

  Place the confectioner’s sugar in a small, shallow bowl. You will be dropping cookie dough into this bowl to form dough balls and coating them with the powdered sugar.

  When your oven is ready, take your dough out of the refrigerator. Using a teaspoon from your silverware drawer, drop the dough by rounded teaspoonful into the bowl with the powdered sugar. Roll the dough around with your fingers to form powdered-sugar-coated cookie dough balls.

  Andrea’s 1st Note: This is easiest if you coat your fingers with powdered sugar first and then try to form the cookie dough into balls.

  Place the coated cookie dough balls on your prepared cookie sheets, no more than 12 cookies on a standard-size sheet.

  Hannah’s 3rd Note: I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Work with only one cookie dough ball at a time. If you drop more than one in the bowl of powdered sugar, they’ll stick together.

  Andrea’s 2nd Note: Make only as many cookie dough balls as you can bake at one time and then cover the dough and return it to the refrigerator. I have a double oven so I prepare 2 sheets of cookies at a time.

  Bake your Chips Galore Whippersnapper Cookies at 350 degrees F., for 10 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely. (This is a lot easier if you line your cookie sheets with parchment paper—then you don’t need to lift the cookies one by one. All you have to do is grab one end of the parchment paper and pull it, cookies and all, onto the wire rack.)

  Once the cookies are completely cool, store them between sheets of waxed paper in a cool, dry place. (Your refrigerator is cool, but it’s definitely not dry!)

  Yield: 3 to 4 dozen soft, chewy cookies, depending on cookie size.

  Andrea’s 3rd Note: Tracey and Bethie love these cookies. Bill says the guys down at the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Station love them, too. His deputies are real cookie hounds!

  Chapter Four

  Hannah scrutinized the small group assembled around the workstation. Everyone there looked just as shocked as she was. “But . . . I’m not getting married until after the competition.”

  “Of course you’re not.” Aunt Nancy smiled at her. “It’s just showbiz. And Allen, for one, appreciates showbiz. Didn’t you say that the head judge’s scores count double?”

  “Yes. That’s what it says in the rules.”

  “Then it’s a perfectly good tactic. Just say that since they moved the competition up two weeks, you didn’t have time to practice making your wedding cake and you wanted to try out your idea with them to see what they thought of your creation.”

  “That’s brilliant, Nancy!” Delores exclaimed. “That’ll put the judges in the position of helping Hannah with something other than winning the competition. And everyone wants to help with a wedding, especially since they all might be there.”

  “That makes sense,” Michelle said. “It might give you an edge over the other contestants.”

  “But . . .” Hannah paused and gave a little frown. “Do you think that’s fair?”

  “It’s fair,” Andrea said without hesitation. “All the other contestants will be researching the judges and trying to figure out how to use that information to their advantage. You’ll be able to do that too, but you’l
l also have the advantage of getting married. And no one else will have that.” She turned to Aunt Nancy. “We’re just lucky you’re here to advise us.”

  “Thank you.” Aunt Nancy looked pleased as she turned back to Hannah. “So what do you think? Do you want to bake a Double Rainbow Swirl Cake for your wedding?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about that yet. What is a Double Rainbow Swirl Cake?”

  “It’s a recipe I used to bake for special occasions, and it includes one of Allen’s favorite ingredients.” Aunt Nancy paused to smile. The smile was impish with a touch of smug mixed in, and Hannah knew Aunt Nancy had thought of a recipe that might give her another advantage over the other contestants.

  “My Double Rainbow Swirl Cake starts with white cake batter. You can use your favorite white cake recipe. You’ll only bake two layers for the judges, but the cake should be quite heavy so that the layers don’t topple when you stack them up for your actual wedding cake.”

  “And I’m volunteering right now to bake the actual cake for the wedding and decorate it,” Lisa declared.

  “I’ll help you bake it,” Aunt Nancy offered.

  “Thank you,” Hannah said gratefully. If the competition ended the day before she was married, she really wouldn’t have time to bake her own wedding cake.

  “What makes it a Double Rainbow Swirl Cake?” Michelle asked Aunt Nancy.

  “It uses different flavors of Jell-O for the colors.”

  “Jell-O!” Andrea exclaimed, looking intrigued. “I make a poke cake that has two colors of Jell-O in it.”

  Hannah hid a smile. When she’d driven Andrea to the hospital to have Bethie, Andrea had admitted that she bought the cake, ready-made, at the Lake Eden Red Owl Grocery store and simply added the Jell-O.

  “This cake uses Jell-O powder that’s added to the cake batter,” Aunt Nancy told them. “You use three colors of Jell-O in one layer and three colors of Jell-O in the other layer.”

  “It sounds intriguing,” Delores said.

  “It is, and it’s also very pretty. The layers are stacked on top of each other and that means you could get all six colors and flavors in every slice.”

  “It sounds perfect.” Hannah smiled at Aunt Nancy. “Thanks for being here. Your help is . . . well . . . invaluable.”

  “I’ll taste the test cake,” Delores offered.

  “Thank you, Mother,” Hannah said, and then she turned back to Aunt Nancy. “This is sounding better and better. What do you think I should do for the ‘free-for-all’? It’s the last challenge in the competition and . . .” she referred to her notes, “it consists of any baked or cooked dessert the contestant chooses to make.”

  “You’ll have to think about that one,” Delores said. “You make so many good desserts. There’s always your great-grandmother’s apple pie. Everyone’s crazy about that.”

  “I know. It’s a really good pie. But everybody’s going to be going all out for that final challenge. Do you think it’s special enough?”

  “Maybe,” Aunt Nancy said. “Do you use a top crust, or a French crumble?”

  “Hannah makes it both ways and gives us a choice,” Andrea told her. “I like the French crumble best.”

  “And I like the top crust with a slice of really sharp cheddar on the side,” Michelle said.

  Delores looked slightly embarrassed. “I usually have two pieces so I can taste them both. And I like vanilla ice cream on top of both of them.”

  “I like the French crumble with sweetened whipped cream,” Lisa gave her preference.

  “This is beginning to sound better and better,” Hannah said. “I could do all the variations with the crusts and the toppings. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like apple pie.”

  Andrea looked thoughtful. “I think you should offer the judges nutmeg on top of the whipped cream. Chef Christian always says that freshly grated nutmeg is a gift from the gods.”

  “Good idea!” Hannah turned to smile at her. It seemed that Andrea had learned something from watching Christian Parker’s show. Then she glanced up at the clock on the wall and came close to groaning out loud. It was a quarter to three and she’d asked Norman to meet her at three for coffee. She had to ask him if he’d be a groomsman at the wedding and she wasn’t looking forward to the encounter. She liked Norman. Perhaps she even loved him. That wasn’t it, at all. Even though they were friends, it was bound to be a very uncomfortable encounter.

  Hannah shut her notebook with a snap. “Thanks so much for helping me. I couldn’t do it without you. I think that’s enough planning for today. Can we all meet here again tomorrow at two o’clock? Michelle and I will bake tonight and we should have some samples by then for you to critique.”

  Michelle waited until Delores and Andrea had left, and Lisa and Aunt Nancy had gone back out to the coffee shop. When they were alone, she turned to Hannah. “What’s going on? I saw you glancing at the clock. Is Ross coming here?”

  “No, he’s going to come back to the condo for dinner at six, but then he has to go to Jordan High to cover the basketball game. The Gulls are playing the Browerville Tigers tonight.”

  “KCOW is going to televise high school basketball?”

  “They are now. It was Ross’s suggestion, and they decided to give it a try. Ross told them he was sure it would increase their viewers.”

  “I think he’s right. Everyone in town supports the Gulls.”

  “I know. And even if people go to the game, they’ll still record the coverage on KCOW and watch it again later.”

  “You said that Ross isn’t getting to the condo until six?”

  “That’s right. All we have to do is make some corn muffins to go with the Green Tomatillo Stew we started in the crockpot this morning. He can stop by after the game to have coffee and dessert with us. That’ll give us a chance to bake something.”

  “That sounds good to me. I’ll make the corn muffins. I’ve got something I want to try anyway. But I still don’t understand why you kept glancing at the clock if Ross wasn’t coming here.”

  Hannah sighed. Michelle was like a dog with a bone once she honed in on something. “I kept my eye on the time because I asked Norman to meet me here at three. And I didn’t want him to arrive when everyone was still here.”

  “You asked Norman to come here?”

  “Yes. I need to talk to him.”

  “Oh, boy!” Michelle looked worried. “That might be very awkward for you. You haven’t talked to Norman since you decided to marry Ross, have you?”

  “No. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “And now you do?”

  “I know what I have to say. I have to invite Norman to be part of the wedding party.”

  “Oh, boy!” Michelle repeated. “You did ask Ross first, didn’t you?”

  “Actually . . . no, I didn’t. Mother called Ross to ask him if he minded Norman and Mike being in the wedding party. And Ross said it was fine with him. He likes both of them.”

  “Mother called Ross?”

  “That’s right. And that’s not all. Then Mother called both Norman and Mike to sound them out about doing it. Grandma Knudson told me about it this morning.”

  “This is really convoluted. Are you telling me that you knew nothing about it before this morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you agreed to everything?”

  “Yes. Grandma Knudson convinced me that it was the right thing to do.”

  “Wait a minute. If Mother already talked to Norman and he said he’d do it, why are you asking him?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Hannah repeated. “I’m the bride. I ought to talk to Norman and Mike about it.”

  “Then they’re both coming here at three?”

  “No, just Norman. Mike said he’d be here at four.”

  “Mistake,” Michelle said. “You should have invited them to come together. They would have kept each other in check. Separating them means that each o
f them can tell you exactly how they feel about the fact that you’re marrying Ross. They wouldn’t do that in front of each other.”

  “I know that, but I decided that this way would be fairer. Both of them are my friends . . . or at least they were my friends. I’ve been avoiding both of them, and that’s wrong. I should give them a chance to say whatever they want to say to me.”

  “You’re probably right, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a glutton for punishment. Do you want me to stay here with you to help?”

  “Now you’re being a glutton for punishment!” Hannah did her best to smile. “Thanks for the offer, but I have to see them alone. If they want privacy to give me a hard time, I’m going to give them the chance to do it. That way all of their feelings will be out in the open and we can put this whole thing behind us.”

  “You hope.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Okay, but I still say you’re asking for it.” Michelle headed for the door to the coffee shop, but she turned back before she pushed it open. “Cookies!”

  “What?”

  “You’ll need cookies. I baked Chocolate Almond Crisps this morning, and I’ll put some on a platter for you. Chocolate would be best in case one or both of them gets upset. You’d better have one, too. Doc doesn’t think it works, but you might need a dose of chocolate endorphins.”

  “That’s a good idea, Michelle.”

  “I know. And then I’ll go out in the coffee shop and keep everyone else out of the kitchen while you talk to Norman. Just give me the high sign when he leaves. And I’ll do the same thing when you talk to Mike.”

  “Thanks, Michelle.”

  “You’re welcome. I just hope I don’t come back in here and find you in a little puddle on the floor!”

  CHOCOLATE ALMOND CRISPS

  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position